CHORD ELECTRONICS: DAVE the DAC

DAVE (Digital to Analogue Veritas in Extremis) is Chord Electronics' most advanced DAC to date. It features a digital preamplifier and a headphone amp - and it goes on sale this autumn for £7995.

Instead of traditional off-the-shelf solutions, Chord tends to use an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) in its high-end DACS and use its own software to do all the number crunching. And DAVE is no different.

Chord's newest arrival also features a high-grade filter with enhanced processing powers and full high-res audio support, including DSD and DXD files up to 768kHz.

Outputs include XLR and standard RCA connectors, plus an advanced headphone output. Inputs include USB Type-B, two optical and four coaxial digital sockets.

Many of you will be familiar with Chord's traditional casework styling - it's precision-milled from aircraft-grade aluminium. The case features a full-sized LCD display and "rotary encoder' with a large stainless steel controller.

The press release also points out that the specifications include two ultra-high-speed digital coaxial outputs, for "future, unannounced Chord Electronics products". We wonder what those could be?